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Grata's Guide: A treat, and a trick, from PennDOT
Sunday, October 31, 1999 By Joe Grata, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
It's trick-or-treat time at the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (or Department of Traffic Torture), and the trick is on us.PennDOT opened the Liberty Avenue on-ramp to the Fort Pitt Bridge at noon Friday, ending this season's $15.3 million phase of renovating the bridge, the Fort Pitt Tunnel and related ramps.
As part of Interstate 376 and Interstate 279, they make up the busiest bundle of transportation arteries in Western Pennsylvania. On Halloween weekend, PennDOT went for the jugular.
Thousands of motorists could have been using the ramp on their way home from business, work, school or shopping in Downtown Pittsburgh if PennDOT had fulfilled its public responsibility and informed people in advance that they would not have to detour via traffic-choked Stanwix Street or elsewhere.
But if people weren't awake at 6:30 a.m. Friday and listening to KDKA radio host John Cigna, who has interviewed PennDOT manager of media information (misinformation?) Dick Skrinjar on his morning show during the highway construction season, they probably would have been unaware that the work had been finished in time for the worst afternoon rush hours of the week.
"You heard it first," Skrinjar told Cigna.
PennDOT must have worked fast. For a change.
On Thursday afternoon, Skrinjar told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the on-ramp would be reopened today.
At 6:30 a.m. Friday, the Post-Gazette and other media, most of them still sleeping, received a news release from Skrinjar, via computer, titled, "Ramp Work to be Completed Today." The release included an invitation to a "noon photo opportunity" at the project site.
PennDOT and the contractors must have worked through the night, after the witching hour, to get done. Then, they set up bales of straw, cornstalks, a scarecrow outfitted in a reflective orange safety vest, fake pumpkins and a changeable message sign across from the State Office Building, at the bottom on the Liberty Avenue on-ramp.
The message sign flashed: "No Tricks -- Just Treats. We're Open. Thanks Pgh."
The head on the scarecrow was a pumpkin, wearing a hard hat. How appropriate.
One e-mail contributor says shame on them for having about 10 highway signs in the Harrisburg area directing people to the state capital when the signs should say capitol.
"They truly embarrass the state," said the e-mailer, whose identity I could not verify in time for this column.
While 40 of the buses are gold, the color scheme has been expanded to include blue, purple and teal -- 40 of each color -- with some accent designs other than Nike-like swooshes. Nearly 100 of the buses had been placed in daily service as of Friday. The remainder are to be on the road within a month.
Authority marketing director Deborah Cooper said gold "will still be the common denominator in all the things we do," although many of the red, white and trimmed-in-black buses will be muscling their way through Pittsburgh traffic for a while.
For the past six years, Scanlon had been director of the Broward County Transit agency in the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., area.
Scanlon, 52, will be paid a salary of $175,000 annually in his new position.
If the 42S line is supposed to arrive every three minutes during rush hours, "Why must I always wait at least 10 minutes for a train home?" he asked/complained. "The cars aren't any cleaner, the drivers aren't any less disheveled or surly, and they certainly are not running anywhere close to schedule."
Doesn't Reynolds know? The T is still flying the "old standard of service" flag.
Send your transportation questions, complaints and suggestions to Joe Grata c/o The Post-Gazette or e-mail him at jgrata@post-gazette.com. Please include your address and phone number for confirmation.
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